Empire Strikes Back Diorama (Battle of Hoth) **Completed**

[skahtul]

Next up, it's oil time to weather the shield generator and the Ion Canon. ILM might not have used 502 Abteilung oil paints, but if they were around at the time they would have In my opinion, nothing gives you an organic weathering effect like oil paints. I also like to put them on cardboard for a few hours to suck up some of the oil. They tend to dry much faster that way.

 

[skahtul]

Just waiting for everything to dry and cure. The first weathering pass on the ion canon and shield generator is done. The big disadvantage of the oils is that they can take a week or more to cure 100%, which is also an advantage as you can continue to manipulate the weathering for 24 to 48 hours pretty easily. Once the paint has set I will add some streaking and a bit of snow.

 

[Big C]

Looking great!

 

[Analyzer]

All the pieces are in place and look good. Looking forward to how they turn out

 

[skahtul]

I used a bit of light weight spackle to fill in some of the seams, it's easy to manipulate and dries pretty hard.

Once I put down several layers of mod podge to seal up the foam, I hit it with some white primer.

The first pass was with some light and dark grey paint with the air brush to define where the next layers will go.

For the snow, I ended up just going the easy route

 

[skahtul]

For me when you really need that 'earth' feel or want something organic (even for things like tanks, engine grease, etc.) nothing beats oil.

I am actually going to go back in and touch it up a bit. I ended up blending it too much and want to get some of that darker black and light earth colors to show more. I only waited a week before I attempted to seal this up with some spray mod podge and the paint ended up cracking a bit so I will let it all settle out for another week or so and hit it again.

 

[skahtul]

Calling this one done!

 

[Analyzer]

Excellent!

 

[skahtul]

Excellent!

thanks!

 

[Sym-Cha]

I took the liberty to process your diorama in photoshop by adding more snow on the mountain as well as a proper background here's the result in B+W :

Chaïm

 

[skahtul]

I took the liberty to process your diorama in photoshop by adding more snow on the mountain as well as a proper background here's the result in B+W :

View attachment 1678899

Chaïm

Dang! That looks super cool, thanks!

 

[joberg]

Great little dio

 

[modelerdave]

Superb work all around.

 

[skahtul]

Superb work all around.

Great little dio

thanks!!

 

[Sym-Cha]

I noticed these two types of cement/glue on your workdesk, could you elaborate a bit more, when to use which type ... it's been a while since I build a modelkit

Chaïm

 

[skahtul]

I noticed these two types of cement/glue on your workdesk, could you elaborate a bit more, when to use which type ... it's been a while since I build a modelkit

Chaïm

For sure! So that one on the left in the yellow bottle is much thicker and has a thick brush. If I am doing something like assembling the saucer section of an enterprise kit or gluing together large sections of a Slave 1, then I will use that one.

That green one on the right is very, very thin and has a tiny brush to match. This is the one I use for 95% of my work. Instead of putting glue on one part and then assembling them, I put the parts together (like a dry fit), and then this thin cement "wicks" into the joint. The advantage is you almost never get excess glue running all over the place, you just put the parts together and then touch the joint with the small brush tip and it wicks into the joint.

Hope that makes sense...